How often do you let your users defer patches?


Userlevel 7

Once? Twice? Three times a lady… oh wait, that’s a song. Seriously though, how many times and for how long do you let users defer updates? Are they generally happy with your policies or do they complain about getting interrupted still?


11 replies

Meh, we don’t let users defer updates. We’re in control, not them. 💪😠

Userlevel 7

But what happens when you force the CEO to reboot during a presentation to the board? 🙂

We let them defer 3 times, with a 1, 2 and 3 hour delay.

Pffft, they do all their board meetings before updates go out. 😉 😛

Two chances with 1 5 hours deferral option. Notified staff to leave their systems online (wherever they are) on a specific day of each Month if they don’t want interruptions during business hours.

Our biggest complaint is not the deferral options, but the fact that nothing appears to happen when they choose the “Install Now” option.

If the user decides the best time for them to wait for an upgrade and potential reboot is now, then it can mess up their schedule if the upgrade doesn’t start for 10 minutes.

Userlevel 7

That’s good feedback, thanks for posting it!

forever

Thanks for the feedback @rjmjr! Would this user pain still exist if the Reboot had a separate notification and did not reboot until the user took action or the countdown expired?

Hi Greg, I am referring to the attached prompt/dialog. When presented with these choices, it is not uncommon for users in our office to choose “Update Now” if they are not currently busy because they don’t want to be interrupted again later in the day when they might be on the phone with a customer (think a call center PC). But after clicking “Install Now” they feel like it is pointless to start any other work when their PC is about to reboot, and they get frustrated when it takes a long time for that reboot to occur.


image.png

I hear you and agree that is frustrating. There is a lot opportunity here to help inform the Device user about progress, required reboots etc. We have the progress update for Device users in our roadmap so when they click “System updates need to install” they could see a progress update periodically. Additionally, when it releases in Q1, the user would also receive a second notification before the machine can reboot. The machine would not automatically reboot without at least a countdown that you configure or they click “Reboot Now”. In your scenario of the call center PC, the reboot notification and subsequent action by the Device user could solve that challenge for your user.


Please let me know if I missed something in your response or if you have any other questions.

Reply